Certain industrial equipment, such as milling machines, need to maintain certain predetermined operating tolerances, oftentimes as small as fractions of millimeters. To achieve such precision, a milling machine should be positioned as level as possible on a machine shop floor, but typically, unevenness of machine shop floors make such leveling difficult. To compensate for uneven floors, metal shims referred to as “leveling plates” are selectively inserted as needed underneath one or more legs of a milling machine in order to level the machine.